subscribe

Pages

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Thursday, September 23, 2010

So Shawna A. asked her bakery to make a cake just like this one from Pink Cake Box:

To make it easier, she even brought in a print-out of this picture. And, since she wanted her cake to say "Welcome Little Monkey" instead of "Happy Birthday," she was sure to cross that bit out. That way, there could be no confusion whatsoever, right?

Riiiight.

All in favor of banning the edible photo printer for all eternity, say "Oy VEY."

After all the posts of the crazy cakes I am still surprised each time. Always surprised at the level of incompetence out there. I went to school to be a pastry chef, I never did wedding cakes or birthday cakes but I'm certain I would never make these kind of mistakes. Right I'm unemployed, looks like there might be hope for me yet!

I'm a bit confused -- it must have been a different picture that she actually submitted, right? (The branch looks like it might be flipped, and the whole picture seems to be rotated about 30 degrees from its center.)

At any rate, we can all agree that the world would be a better place if the edible photo printer went the way of the dodo.

I have to say, since a planner would usually pick up the cake right before the event, I'm guessing that some people who send in these wrecks have to let the irritation die down before the humor becomes evident. Or else someone not closely involved in the planning sends the picture!

I love this blog and so does my aspiring cake decorating daughter so when I saw the Cakewrecks calendar last night I *had* to buy it for her. Question though: Has anyone opened it and looked? Or John maybe you can help...does it contain any of the PG13 posts?

Not really. There's some very vague stuff that I can't imagine any child would "get." Of course, it seems like most nine year olds know bad words that I've never even imagined so who knows? But overall, nothing that bad. In my opinion.*

john

*The opinions of john (the hubby of Jen) may not be shared by any or all individuals who may or may not read this blog. Please see section 43A, addendum 3, paragraph 9 "John's stupid opinions" in the Cake Wrecks manifesto for further details.

I had a similar experience with a cake I ordered for my husband's retirement. I gave the baker photos of some things that represent my husband's past and future endeavors and, you guessed it, she made edible images of these photos rather than piping them on the sides of the cake. Not bad enough to be a Cake Wreck, but I was quite disappointed. "Ace of Cakes" and Sunday Sweets have raised my expectations to insurmountable levels...

Gah!! What kind of morons are working at these bakeries?! Who would want a photo of a cake.on.their.cake?! Insanity! I'm going to stick to making my own cakes; they might not be "professional" looking but I'm starting to be more and more ok with that. lol

I used to work for an advertising magazine company, and EVERY SINGLE MONTH, we would go to the same bakery department at Sam's Club (that's right, I'm calling you out by name). We were such regular customers that the greeter would recognize and view the cake each time.

All we wanted was to get the cover ad printed as a photo onto the cake. No words, just please take this picture I'm handing to you, use the edible printer to scan exactly as is, and pipe blue icing around the edges.

I would say that at least 75% of the time, it was done wrong. Picture cropped, turned the wrong way, not iced around the edges, wrong color icing- it was like they were thinking up ways to ruin it.

No matter if it was the same baker as last month, no matter how carefully I filled out the form, no matter the simplicty, still wrong. Sometimes you can't win for trying.

I agree this is sad, but I can't help but wonder what made the orderer think this bakery could pull of the original cake ? I mean for a lot of bakeries a sheet cake with an edible printout is the upper limit of their talent. I'd doubt any place willing to make a cake like the one Shawna ended up with is doing semi-sculptural fondant or sugar clay on their other cakes.

I'm honestly starting to wonder if some of these came about because the customer used an online form that had an image upload option and incorrectly guessed its purpose. No human could be that dense. They just couldn't! And this is speaking as someone who's been reading Not Always Right all weekend.

Why do I suspect that Shawna's reaction was similar to the Jane Austen quote of two days' ago:

"Are you frickin' kidding me?!?

This reinforces my theory that, when asked what time you want to pick up the cake, you should always say 5 hours before you really need it. That allows time for the frosting to be scraped off and redone.

It also makes me glad these people work in bakeries. They could work at the cable TV call center. Or perhaps nuclear power plants.

That rather surprises me...we get all of cakes for work from Sam's Club's bakery, and they have never been a wreck, or even close. They pretty much give us exactly what we ask for. I guess it depends on the talents at the specific bakery!

people just have to stop ordering "custom" cakes from places where there is a chaffing dish of crusty mac-n-cheese on the other side of the register! Grocery stores and club stores are just not ever going to return a replica of a pricey cake to you for $17.99

WV:"ectation"--my ectation for this cake was out of proportion to your decorator's abilities. Now you should "ectate" that I will not be paying for this.

I think it is pretty evident from lots and lots of pictures here, that the previous comment about making sure you are taking it to the right kind of bakery is pretty accurate. Plus being wiser about your word choices. Such as asking the bakery first "Do you do fondant sculptures" instead of "Can you put this on there" as you hand a pic of what you want.

When will people learn that taking a picture of a cake they see from a professional baker to a grocery store bakery that they will not get a cake that looks like the one they want. Grocery stores hire people with no experience or expertise to pull off a cake like Pink Cake Box and others of us that know what we are doing. You get what you pay for people!

However, I agree with Kimberly. People should assume they can take a photo of a cake from a high-end custom cake shop to any corner bakery and expect them to replicate it. Not only is the expectation unrealistic, but the customer probably didn't want to pay the $125 the Pink Cake Box likely charged for this sheet cake.

I have to say this site makes me laugh really hard and at the same time feel deep, deep shame. I work in a grocery store bakery, faux "buttercream" frosting, airbrushing, and edible images... the works. We're lucky, though. The main decorator and myself know the limits of those things, and let the customers know. Oh, and also have a scrap of self respect and maybe some common sense. When I see laziness and just plain idiocy like this first I usually get a great laugh, and then I want to find the decorator and just shake them. I'm really grateful we have the decorator we have, wow. It's not rocket science, fellow bakery clerks, work with me here.

It's just like the time I took a picture of Cindy Crawford to the salon and said, "Do that." Instead, my hair looked nothing like "that" and I cried for 3 weeks. Hint: Leave the salon when you catch your stylist calling the toll free number on the back of the box.

Hmmm, what's the copyright law on cake design? 'Cause I'm thinking that it would be in violation of the original cake-a-rator's copyright to have someone else copy it. Not to mention crazy to think that a relatively unskilled decorator is going to be able to duplicate a high end design (at a very low cost).

After discovering CakeWrecks 2 months ago and enjoying every tasty morsel of it since, I can safely say TWO UNWRITTEN COMMANDMENTS may have arisen out of examples such as this latest feat of wreckery:

1. Thou shalt not order thy cake, nor request decorations for said cake, over the phone. Because not even ordering your cake in person and carefully writing down what you want on it is ANY guarantee that you'll be happy with the result.

2. Thou shalt not take a picture of an exquisite fondant-enrobed specialty cake, adorned with take-your-breath-away-figures-artfully-sculpted-from-modeling-chocolate by an upscale bakery, to the clerk at your corner grocery store and hope that the local talent would even approach the skill level required to execute a "minimally reasonable" facsimile of said specialty cake. And I emphasize the air quotes on "minimally reasonable."

People, I have y'all have learned your lesson, because my neck is now sore from all that head-shaking...

This is pretty sad, but I have to say that anyone that orders a cake from a grocery store bakery expecting it to look ANYthing like a cake from Pink Cake Box is probably mentally challenged. Or just really *really* cheap and expecting to get a cake worth $200 for $14.99.

Just goes to show that technology in the wrong hands can be a very bad thing.However, I have used a photo print in making a "Headline News" type cake that was very tastefull (and tasty) for a 90th birthday using the page layout and fonts of the man's hometown newspaper. It was a huge success and is still one of my favorite cakes I have made.

I've laughed at the "printing a picture instead of decorating the cake" wrecks before, but this one is just sad.

I hear and accept the points made by those who say "don't ask a grocery store to do a high end baker's job," but, except in matters of spelling, grammar and common sense, cake customers know even less about cake decorating than grocery stores. To ignorant li'l me, that monkey cake looks easier to make than the race cars, Disney princesses and pretty roses that my grocery store displays already. While it may be unreasonable to expect a grocery store to produce a designer cake, is it unreasonable to expect them to decline demands they can't meet or to realize that an edible photo of another cake is not "a cake like this one"?

You know, I think even an unexperienced grocery store cake decorator who decorates cheapie cakes should at least have the competence to say "We can't do something that elaborate here," or "We don't do fondant. However, we can..." or, at the very, very least, "So you want this picture you handed to me printed onto the cake, right?

Instead of, you know... guessing and letting the customer sort it out later.

Ok, I just have to say to everyone that's spouting the "don't ask a grocery store chain bakery to do a designer cake for $14.99", that the bakeries need to be up-front and honest about the skills of their cake decorators, instead of saying, "Sure, we can do that" and then producing wrecks like this.

Yes, it's not that smart to take a picture of a high-priced, very skilled cake to the local 'food-mart', and expect the staff to be up to the challenge. That is NOT the issue here. The issue is that the customer asked the bakery to do a cake like the one in the picture, with an alteration, and they AGREED to do it. They didn't say that the design was too complex or fancy for the staff decorators to reproduce. If, in fact, the bakery staff had said that, and then the customer insisted, then it would be, at least, partially the customer's fault. But, apparently, that DIDN'T happen. Instead, the bakery agreed to the design, and then produced this monstrosity.

And I can't imagine why people would want to kick the customer when he/she is 'down', per se. Instead of lamenting the fact that the cake turned out as a wreck, people are saying that it's the customer's fault because he/she expected a $100+ result for $14.99. Way to be unsympathetic! I dearly hope that none of YOU experience that kind of disappointment, only to have people tell you it's YOUR fault for choosing a particular bakery!! You should expect higher quality from a professional bakery. Otherwise, why pay good money for a cake? Just bake your own cakes, if you can't expect a reasonable amount of quality from a bakery that is charging for their cakes!

There is a nearby supermarket bakery that produces very tasty results -- with real buttercream, I might add -- but no reasonable person would expect 'fancy' cakes from them, just as I wouldn't expect to sit down to a candlelit steak dinner under the 'golden arches'.

If I were feeling optimistic about the creative resources of an establishment that sells both cake and cat litter, I would hand the decorator a sheet of paper and a box of crayons, saying, "Before you commit anything to frosting, draw your interpretation of my instructions."

A decorator who can't at least sketch what they intend to do is by definition not going to be able to execute it, while a decorator who simply refused would also be refusing my business.

A phone order would obviously require a different approach, but as a reasonably sane person who reads CW daily, I wouldn't be ordering a cake over the phone anyway -- that is known as a 'wreck request'.

I like the idea of having the baker sketch the drawing first. And the baker should have said we can't do this and maybe made a suggestion as to what they could do! I bet they could have come up with something acceptable. I would appreciate the honesty. But don't blame the customer; she waasn't expecting this.

I fully agree with Jennifer--bakeries should be up front about their limitations. (For one thing, it keeps them from showing up on Cake Wrecks!) I'm currently working for myself, and I won't take on a project that I can't accomplish. It's just good business practice to make sure I can do what I say I can do. Bakeries not up to requested cakes can just say "This is a specialty cake, and we don't specialize in this particular kind of cake. How about this [cute and doable alternative] which could be ready in [fast amount of time]?"

Wow! I definitely envy the owner of the i love shoes cake! Its a fashion wannabee shoes..I would love to wear it..But mostly, I would love to eat it!!I like this blog..Its giving me all the other ways of making artful cake..though not all of them were adorable..some of them just dont get into my taste..they are just way too lowly to be appreciated..hahaha but i like the fashion shoes cake though..

as always, this blog makes me hungry..definitly wanted to be eaten while playing my favorite mah jong games..

I've only used edible photo printers for one type of cake, and those were historic book cakes like this one, using online facsimilies of the original books: http://www.geocities.com/magdacakes/Arbeau.html

For that purpose, they were great. I'm not a big fan of photos on cakes in general though. And certainly not in this case!

Search This Blog

Wreck the Halls

NEW! Pre-Order Today!

Buy the Book

Buy the NYT Bestseller

What's a Wreck?

What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

order

Where's the book?

We don’t have any copies of Cake Wrecks for sale here, autographed or otherwise. We decided the shipping and handling costs would be too high to make it worth your while. So instead, buy your copies locally or online and then order personalized bookplates: it’s cheaper, easier, and I think even looks a bit nicer.

Ordering Info

Payments must be made through Paypal, which accepts all major credit cards. Sorry, but that means no checks or MOs or barter-based chickens.

We ship everything first class USPS, and will do our best to have your package in the mail within 2 days of your order.